Jackson Browne will be making a handful of appointments this month with his old friend and partner James Taylor. Speaking of traveling with Taylor, Browne called him “The Standard-Bearer of the Singer-Songwriter Movement. “
It’s appealing to hear Browne say that. For many, Browne was the face of the singer-songwriter movement of the ’70s; at the time, Browne was a multiplatinum star who released some of the most important songs of that era. review, only Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan and Blue by Joni Mitchell as the greatest singer-songwriter album of all time.
But Browne, as it hasn’t been in years, doesn’t care about prestige or sales. He has become a hero to many of his peers in the 80s for albums like Lives In The Balance, where he used his abundant voice and managed to solve problems in Central America in the name song.
At the age of 73 in October, Browne, who says, “I’m a better singer now,” has mastered the art of mixing and politics, as he does brilliantly in his new, hard-reaching collection, Downhill From Everywhere (released this Friday, July 23). Whether it’s on the vulnerable opening track, “Still Looking For Something” and the witty “Minutes From Downtown” to the sharp “The Dreamer” and “Until Justice Is Real,” Downhill From Everywhere is why Browne is in the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Hall of Fame.
I talked to Browne about the new album, how Taylor has had it throughout his career and why his entire musical identity comes from listening to John Lennon and the Beatles.
Steve Baltin: How are you?
Jackson Browne: I’m fine, well. I’ve been where I’ve been for a year and a half. I take the guitars like a sinking ship.
Baltin: You were one of the first musicians to hire COVID What effect did this have on you from the beginning?
Browne: Interesting to ask that. Because I didn’t need to tell anyone I had it. I was telling someone at Rolling Stone that I couldn’t do what they asked of me from the Zoom house because I was in poor health. They were creating a bachelor that I would pitch to have something to play on the tour. And it all happened at the same time. The songs “A Little Soon To Say” and “Downhill From Everywhere” were coming out then and I said bluntly, “Well, they gave it to me. “And it has become history. So I didn’t plan to make a big press release of the one I had. But it’s over, I ended up flooded with calls, text messages and emails. It only took me days. I didn’t even control myself to answer because I’m not used to receiving so much correspondence. It’s attractive because, yes, I met other people who had it. I didn’t have a hard time, but they did. Two of my friends were in very, very poor health and thankfully they made it, but I was tight.
Baltin: You and I have talked for years about the fact that music is prophetic. Much of this album sounds prophetic, but from what I understand, most of this album was written before the pandemic, right?
Browne: Yes, that was pretty much in the works. The songs were in the works, unless it was a few lines in a song and maybe the amount of “A Song For Barcelona” to sing in Catalan. This kind of things. In fact, I ended up spending more time on this song. [laughs] I was running with an engineer. He had it and they gave it to me. We wear a mask and distance ourselves. At one point he said, “We have been performing this song for a month. I didn’t realize it, because I was just looking at other things. Active recording has somehow become intertwined with writing. Actually, we don’t know when writing stops and when recording starts. Usually I write a song while I record it. In the case of “A Song For Barcelona”, he crossed the line and wrote a whole bridge in Catalan. And I couldn’t record it until I was sure to record it in a room with five or six people. So I was looking forward to recording it while he was running it. And even after recording it, I spent a lot of time gambling with it. But yeah, being quarantined and having a lot of time, I think the songs were cured. They kind of got old during the recording process.
Baltin: The opening of “My Cleveland Heart” caught my attention as Warren Zevon of the ’70s and I don’t know if it was intentional assent or if you heard it so much that it’s embedded in your subconscious.
Browne: There’s a component in me that resonates with the way Warren approaches an issue. I’m not flattering myself. I’ve never been able to write like Warren, he was such a brilliant satirist. And this song is satirical, but it’s very influenced by him, I would say, but I don’t confuse or compare what I do with what Zevon might have done, and I sing his songs all the time. People call them to my concerts because they know I know some of those songs. I’m as willing as anyone else to avoid what I’m doing and sing some of his songs.
Baltin: Did you start betting Downhill From Everywhere songs?
Browne: One, “My Heart of Cleveland. ” I turned it into a virtual performance. With Val McCallum]. We write this song in combination and we can’t decide who will sing it. This song evolved in a glorious way, because it was an option. What component deserves me to sing in the choir? And I can sing the response component but it didn’t work. So it wasn’t my first selection to have him sing the answers all of a sudden, but it worked great. And now that I’ve done. he made two videos of him, it’s working very well.
Baltin: Is there a song from this album that you have an idea of how you would put them on stage?
Browne: I have this in mind, “How am I going to do this?” How am I going to do this later? And in the case of “A Human Touch”, I can’t sing the female component and the male component. It is a duet, it is written in duet. But singers who sing with me, or can just sing that component, it’s simple for them. It’s glorious that it’s a duo. The way I solved this challenge the last time I was hiking, I just invited Leslie Mendelsohn to be my guest and she came to a ton of concerts. First, we invited her because she was in New York to play Beacon, and I invited her to come do it because she was there. And she was so smart that I said, “Hey, do you need to come to the other screens too?” And she did. We ended up making plans that way. I don’t know if she will have time to do a lot of things with me, because she has hers of her own screens, but I will find a way to make this song. And I have to be able to update other musicians at certain times. Nobody can dedicate all their time to the excursion. Everyone has children, other people have families and a circle of relatives, life and stuff. I already have updates for one of the singers, I have an update for one of the guitarists.
Baltin: We talked in 2016 about one of my favorite songs, “That Girl may just Sing,” and why you played it so rarely.
Browne: I tell you, “That girl could sing” is whatever I bothered to be informed and it’s just that I went to the trouble of being informed. We have what it takes. Women in my organization can sing it. Not everyone recognizes that this was done in real time with genuine voices and that it has been a bit late. “In death, shine in the night, shine a light. ” It was Doug Haywood making a song the answers for me. And most people think he was late, so that was my late voice. But is not. And having Jeff Young let you know is all there is to practice. But the innermost component of “That Girl Could Sing” is the David Lindley solo because you can’t just ask someone to screw it up with a bunch of guitar solo, that’s for sure. Array And Greg Leisz can keep up with the David Lindley stuff. In fact, David Lindley may not do it in this song. We were recording it and did this fundamental track and it was amazing, however I looked to do a solo component. He played the solo live, so if you pay attention to it, it has a sound for sure. He is the one who hits the magnet, the horseshoe magnet that is on the slide guitar, wraps the strings, with his pick. So nobody has those instruments. Greg does, but the point is, when I told him I wanted to redo the solo so that he would just go all the way to the highs, he said, “Okay, I’m going to go through this amp. ” Then he said, “You can’t anymore. have that sound, let’s move on. ” I’m going through, “What do you mean?” “I did it with a safe amp and the speaker broke and I plugged it back in, and it’s different. He doesn’t make that sound anymore. ” (Laughs) “Can’t you say that, isn’t it passne? Can’t recreate it?” And we tried, I gave him a check and he was right. It was just past. And it’s a bit wicked to appreciate this cause that David Lindley used to quote Eric Dolphy, the wonderful jazz saxophonist, who used to say, “Notes pass in the air and pass. ” I think he was very excited to tell me: “You can’t have this, there is rarely much more of that” (cracks). But if we stick to this arrangement meticulously, there is regularly something else that gets passed on. There are some clever things about this song that you can check out to get into this arrangement. I am fortunate that Greg Liesz knows Lindley’s tone well. And he rarely does he quote David. As in “Running On Empty”, it will start and you will think that you are listening to David Lindley the first 8 bars or something like that.
Baltin: Are there any songs you haven’t played in a while that you’re about to bring back?
Browne: Yeah, I think my edit what you’re talking about is that while I’m in a position to go on tour, I can’t possibly play Array . . . on the screens that I do with James Taylor, I have an hour to do my maximum productive set. . But it’s an opening set, I can’t really do what you do at the end of a concert. Possibly she wouldn’t have that kind of climax feeling. So I just have to revise to make up some of the songs on the new album and the most productive thing I’ve ever done. I guess it’s a game of chance for a more general audience. My die-hard fans will be there, but not all of my die-hard fans. There will also be other people who will have a passing wisdom of my music. The task is to open at night. So there are songs that I think will work. I made the decision that I would probably start the night with “I’m Alive. ” And I also found a way to open this song up a bit. I sing now, I think I sing better. But if I sing a song like “Late For The Sky”, I realize that the song begins with an advent on guitar. For most of the other people who pay attention to this song, they pay attention to this record, and this is what the song sounds like when it begins. So I think I will bother to be informed of that. Like I said about going to the trouble of being informed “That girl could sing”, there are two things. I’m proud of the fact that those songs can be done through anyone or me in an absolutely different way and the song still stands. But if I do the original arrangement, I think it will have some kind of price in a live concert. I need other people to say “Oh! I love this song” as soon as they hear the intro.
Baltin: Is it fun to faint on the road with James you’ve known for 50 years, I guess?
Browne: It is a real thrill. It’s amazing because James has been like my consultant in a way. He somehow he recorded before me and of course I knew his records before I even met him. But I also got to play with some of his players. I was able to make my first record with guys who played in his band. So somehow I learned a lot from him and he was kind of a beacon for me in terms of making a song, writing and gambling. He was the flagship type of the singer / movement movement. composer. There were singers / songwriters, of course, but it has become something other people saw as a special and distinct camera from rock and roll. I like to think of Keith Richards as a singer / songwriter, anyone who sings and writes his own songs. But James, of course, is a teacher. He wrote some of the greatest songs of all time. And his band is one of the most productive bands you’ve ever heard. And one or two of them are other people I’ve played with before, so it’s a family circle. And James is a wonderful host. He is very hospitable and makes everyone excited and toast in the moment, adding thousands upon thousands of other people at a ballpark, where you can hear a fly fly. He absolutely replaced the dynamics of what it means to be in a great collectibles and to listen to those songs. It’s partly because everyone knows the songs so well, but it’s also because you know James so well. And he has a confident calm and solidity about making a song and betting that you can absolutely trust. He’s fascinating, it’s like a master class. I was only able to do a few concerts with him in these kinds of settings, ballparks. But most of them will be in arenas. And again, we assume that because you are in a big arena, you have to make a lot of noise. In fact, my total writing, my total attitude towards functionality was superseded when I started playing on 20,000-seat basketball fields. And I lost what I’m talking about. If he did, he calmed down a bit while he was learning how to play in a stadium.
Baltin: What do you think of the new album when you pay attention to it as a whole?
Browne: A lot of those songs were written over a multi-year era, so the songs evolved over a multi-year era and are more about the times we live in, and some of them are amplified through who we’ve been. through the following year, COVID. Como “A Human Touch” takes on additional meaning. But also “Until Justice Is Real” is made more resonant through last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. culture, which have not been resolved in all our lives, then those things are not of the moment, they are of our time.
Baltin: But you’ve been a master at that, mixing personal and politics, is there any artist you appreciate to the fullest for their ability to do this?
Browne: John Lennon because I grew up listening to the Beatles. And you have room on your albums to listen to the most intimate song, “She’s Leaving Home,” let’s say, as well as “A Day In The Life. “the breadth and intensity of the Beatles and the ability to go from a very intimate symbol to a very universal symbol inform, I think, all my life, my total concept of music, what music is for.
I’ve written for Billboard, Rolling Stone, L. A. Times, Yahoo, Vice and all other major publications as host of Hulu Riffing With and
I’ve written for Billboard, Rolling Stone, LATimes, Yahoo, Vice and all other major publications, host the Hulu Riffing With interview series, and teach music journalism for Grammy Camp. I’ve had countless amazing musical experiences, from tea with Neil Young to suspension in a limousine with Stevie Wonder, to dining beer with the Foo Fighters in Las Vegas and living up to Skrillex. When I write about music, I go out with my dog, play basketball and lent sushi under the Southern California sun.